“This School is Killing my Soul”: Threat Rigidity Responses to High-Stakes Accountability Policies

Brezicha, Kristina; Kavanagh, Kara M.; Martin, Anne; Fisher-Ari, Teresa R.

doi:10.1177/00420859221081762

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 75 publications

(181 reference statements)

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“…Although the theory was primarily developed for purposes of addressing the question of organizational adaptation in the face of diversity, it has also found its use in studies that model individual and group level behaviors under stressed conditions (Brezicha, Kavanagh, Martin, & Fisher-Ari, 2022). After all, organizational reactions to crises are decided upon by individuals or a group of individuals such that the social and psychology paths through which individual actions are influenced also apply to organizations by extension (Staw, Sandelands, & Dutton, 1981).…”

Section: Threat Rigidity Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

SME Strategic Management Practices during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Developing Countries: An Empirical Test of the Threat Rigidity Hypothesis

Muyuni,

Phiri

2024

OJBM

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The study undertook to establish the strategic management practices adopted by Zambian SMEs during the COVID-19 pandemic and how they affected their performance. To help with meeting the foregoing objective, a pragmatic research approach which permits the use of mixed methods research design was adopted. With quantitative data being of primary focus, it successfully collected data from 333 SMEs who had been in operation for at least 4 years at the time of the survey. With data on strategic management practices and business performance collected using a Likert scale questionnaire, they were initially subjected to Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). EFA enabled the computation of factor scores, which are composite indices that represented the concepts of interest in as far as variable operationalization was concerned. The results show that surveyed SMEs adopted defensive strategic management practices in their attempt to navigate through the challenges that were presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. The extent to which surveyed SMEs were defensive was, however, moderate. On further investigating whether SMEs were justified in their preferences for execution of defensive strategic management actions as far as performance was concerned, the study found mixed results. Particularly, those who chose to scale down their operations were found to have performed better than their counterparts who did not. On the contrary, those that decided to restrict their scope of information search and processing had poorer performance outcomes than those that opted to do the opposite. On the basis of the foregoing, the study recommends a mix of offensive and defensive strategic managements practices when SMEs are facing a crisis environment for purposes of building resilience.

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Section: Threat Rigidity Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

SME Strategic Management Practices during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Developing Countries: An Empirical Test of the Threat Rigidity Hypothesis

Muyuni,

Phiri

2024

OJBM

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“…Teachers in low-performing schools face several threats to vitality. Heightened external pressure and control, unpredictable environments, limited professional support, and intense work demands can leave teachers in low-performing schools frustrated, exhausted, and depleted of authentic energy (Brezicha, Kavanagh, Martin, & Fisher-Ari, 2022;Daly, 2009;Duke, 2012;Olsen & Sexton, 2009). Such conditions explain why low-performing schools are susceptible to higher teacher turnover (Viano et al, 2021), lower qualified and less experienced teachers (Boyd, Lankford, & Wyckoff, 2007), high emotional labour and emotional exhaustion (Richardson, Alexander, & Castleberry, 2008), increased stress, and reduced sleep (Farley & Chamberlain, 2021), lower collective teacher efficacy (Adams & Forsyth, 2009;Goddard, Hoy, & Woolfolk Hoy, 2000), and lower trust in students and parents (Bryk & Schneider, 2002;Tschannen-Moran, 2014).…”

Section: Conceptualizing Teacher Vitalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Principal Support for Teacher Vitality: An Empirical Analysis in Low-Performing Schools

Adams,

Hamlin,

Adigun

2024

IJEPL

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This article draws on a teacher survey (n = 789) to examine the relationship between teacher vitality and two conversational approaches—transformative leadership conversation and controlling conversation. The analyses use latent structural equation modelling. The sample is restricted to teachers in schools with an accountability rating of “low performing” so that principal/teacher conversations can be examined in schools that potentially have the most to gain from strong teacher vitality. Results indicate that the use of transformative leadership conversation had a direct positive relationship with teacher vitality (β = .26) and an indirect relationship (β = .22) with it through teacher need satisfaction. Controlling conversation had a negative relationship with teacher vitality, but it did not have a statistically significant relationship with need satisfaction.

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Teachers’ Principled Resistance to Curricular Control: A Theoretical Literature Review

Huddleston,

Talley,

Edgington

et al. 2024

Review of Educational Research

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The purpose of this project was to conduct a theoretical literature review of the research that has documented examples of teachers’ principled resistance to curricular control. Principled resistance occurs when teachers reject curricular policies and programs that control their work and conflict with their professional principles. The authors examined the pedagogical commitments that led to teachers’ principled resistance and drew upon Lacey’s and Sikes et al.’s model of teacher socialization to analyze how teachers have engaged in principled resistance. The authors located 62 studies published between 1984 and 2022. Teachers resisted forms of neoliberal curricular control they believed did not meet their students’ academic and social needs, most negatively impacted ethnically diverse and impoverished students, and was not culturally responsive. Teachers enacted principled resistance through strategic compliance, strategic compromise, strategic redefinition, overt and outright resistance, and leaving. Implications for researchers, school administrators, policymakers, and teachers are discussed.

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“This School is Killing my Soul”: Threat Rigidity Responses to High-Stakes Accountability Policies

Cited by 3 publications

References 75 publications

SME Strategic Management Practices during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Developing Countries: An Empirical Test of the Threat Rigidity Hypothesis

SME Strategic Management Practices during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Developing Countries: An Empirical Test of the Threat Rigidity Hypothesis

Principal Support for Teacher Vitality: An Empirical Analysis in Low-Performing Schools

Teachers’ Principled Resistance to Curricular Control: A Theoretical Literature Review

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